DePaul Law News

Skadden Fellow Margaret Kuzma establishes legal services for low-income military families

DePaul law student Margaret Kuzma (JD ’12) knew she wanted to dedicate her professional life to helping military veterans after she directed a sexual assault prevention program on two different U.S. Army bases. So much so that she enrolled in law school to help reach her goal. Now, after being named one of this year’s recipients of the prestigious Skadden Fellowship, Kuzma will be able to provide low-income military families with the type of legal assistance she knows they merit.

“Working with active duty families was tremendously rewarding, but I wanted to do more,” says Kuzma, whose husband is a former infantry officer who served in Iraq. “I decided to go to law school so that I could have the skills and knowledge to actively seek systemic change for military families, sexual assault survivors and other vulnerable populations. As a Skadden Fellow, I hope to provide the legal services these families so desperately need and deserve.”

Established in 1988 by the law firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom and administered by the Skadden Foundation, the highly competitive two-year fellowships are awarded to a distinguished group of law students from around the country who, like Kuzma, aim to put their legal skills to work for the public good. Fellows are identified based on their academic performance, a demonstrated commitment to the public interest and the quality of a self-designed legal services project with a sponsoring organization. Recipients complete their projects during the course of the fellowship, which pays their salary and any fringe benefits they would receive as an employee of the sponsoring organization.

Kuzma will work with the Legal Assistance Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago (LAF) to provide direct legal services to Illinois military families, specifically members of the Illinois National Guard, who face another deployment in 2013. According to Kuzma, they will offer legal services that cover a range of issues including employment law, consumer protection, housing law and family law. “My focus on the military community will allow me to holistically address all the families’ needs instead of only those in one particular area of the law.”

Alumna receives Chicago Bar Foundation Sun-Times Public Interest Law Fellowship

The Chicago Bar Foundation (CBF) recently awarded DePaul alumna, Keri McGuire (JD '03) with a CBF Sun-Times Public Interest Law Fellowship. The fellowship gives Keri, a senior staff attorney at Life Span, $50,000 in loan repayment assistance over five years to help her continue her career in legal aid.

Upon receiving her fellowship, McGuire said, “I will not have to make the horrible choice to leave the job that brings much satisfaction to my life in order to pay the bills. There are so many more clients in need of help and I want to continue to help them. This fellowship will make that possible.” Four other local legal aid attorneys also received fellowships.

Pictured from left to right: Bob Glaves, executive director of the Chicago Bar Foundation; Keri McGuire ('03), senior staff attorney at Life Span; David Mann, chair of the CBF Sun-Times Fellowship Selection Committee.

Since 2007, the CBF has awarded five annual fellowships of up to $50,000 per fellowship to individual legal aid or public interest law attorneys who demonstrate a commitment to public interest work, academic achievement in law school, and outstanding character and integrity.

“Helping dedicated legal aid attorneys sustain their careers in legal aid is one of our top priorities here at the CBF,” said Bob Glaves, executive director of The Chicago Bar Foundation. “The CBF Sun-Times Fellowship Program helps to make it possible for these exceptional attorneys to continue providing much needed legal services to the most vulnerable in our community while alleviating some of their concerns about making ends meet when faced with mortgage-sized law school debt.” 

Center for Public Interest Law to host symposium on race issues: February 29-March 1, 2012

DePaul's Center for Public Interest Law (CPIL) will host the 6th Annual Vincentian Public Interest Law Symposium titled, "Neighborhoods and the Legacy of Segregation in Chicago: A Discussion About Historical and Present Racism in Housing, Education, and Incarceration."

On February 29 at 6:00 p.m. at Holland & Knight, oral historian Timuel Black and attorney Virginia Martinez (JD '75) will lead a discussion about Chicago's racial history. On March 1 from 9:00 a.m.-1:30 p.m. at the DePaul Center, CPIL will hold three panel discussions. The first will focus on Lathrop Homes and the future of public and affordable housing in Chicago. The second panel will discuss diversity and the Chicago Public education system after the consent decree. The third and final panel will explore racist policing, prosecution and imprisonment and its effects on communities of color in Chicago.

The event is supported by the Vincentian Endowment Fund and the Office of Institutional Diversity and Equity. CLE credit will be available, and more detailed information will be available in January 2012. To RSVP in advance, please email cpil@depaul.edu.  

Click here to view or download the save-the-date flyer.

Delegation representing Bedouin community of Negev meets with DePaul law students

A delegation representing the Bedouin community of the Negev in southern Israel traveled to Chicago in October 2011, meeting with students and faculty of the College of Law. The four-member team specifically chose DePaul as an essential stop among meetings with congressmen and law school students in Chicago, Washington D.C. and New York.  

Led by Dr. Thabet Abu Ras, director of the Negev Project at Adalah and the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, the delegation hoped to raise U.S. awareness and foster discussion on discriminatory policies targeted at Negev’s Bedouins, a group historically comprised of Arab nomads. The presentation at DePaul centered on the Prawer plan, recently implemented by the Israeli prime minister’s office. The controversial housing plan proposes forceful relocation of approximately two-thirds of Negev’s Bedouins from outlying, rural villages into state planned towns. The Bedouin community was not involved in the discussion or development of the plan.

Presented by the International Human Rights Law Institute (IHRLI), the event offered an opportunity for students and activists to discuss issues in a small group setting. Also contributing to the dialogue was Rawia Abu Rabia, an attorney for the Association for Civil Rights in Israel; Hanan Al-Sana, director of education and community development at Sidreh Association, which engages over 3,000 Bedouin women in literacy, leadership and rights education; and Michal Rotem, from the Negev Coexistence Forum for Civil Equality.

The delegation’s two-week trip was sponsored by the U.S. nonprofit group Telos Group and its Project Engage, a Washington D.C.-based initiative which seeks to educate Americans about the Middle East and determine realistic, peaceful solutions.

DePaul law student receives prestigious Skadden Fellowship

DePaul University College of Law is pleased to announce that third-year student Margaret Kuzma is a recipient of the prestigious Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom Fellowship. Established in 1988 to commemorate the firm’s 40th anniversary, the Skadden Fellowship Foundation was created to provide graduating law students with the freedom to pursue public interest work by providing them with a salary and fringe benefits for a two-year period. 

With the addition of the 2012 recipients, the firm has funded 648 outstanding law school graduates. Kuzma is the third DePaul law student to be named a Skadden Fellow in the foundation’s 23-year history, joining the ranks of fellows from Columbia, Georgetown, Harvard, New York University, Northwestern, Stanford, University of California-Boalt Hall, University of Michigan, University of Pennsylvania, University of Virginia and Yale, among others.

Prior to applying, fellows are required to create projects at public interest organizations that provide civil legal services to the poor, elderly, disabled or those deprived of civil or human rights. Kuzma’s winning project seeks to establish legal services for low-income National Guard service members and their families through the Legal Assistance Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago. 

Kuzma came to DePaul as a Schiller DuCanto & Fleck Family Law Center fellow. During her time here, she received the center’s summer public service award, fellows award, and internships with both the Illinois Attorney General’s Office, Women’s Issues Division, and the Legal Assistance Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago. In addition, the Center for Public Interest Law awarded her the Cudahy Public Interest Summer Scholarship and the Mansfield Fellowship, which funded her work during her second summer at LAF, where she received the Skadden.

Read more about Kuzma and her Skadden Fellowship project.

Students Help Feed At-Risk Families for the Pro Bono & Community Service Initiative’s November 2011 Donate-A-Day

(Students packing bins at the food pantry)

On November 19, 2011, DePaul’s Pro Bono & Community Service Initiative hosted its November Donate-A-Day service event at St. Columbanus Food Pantry, which is located on Chicago’s south side.  St. Columbanus Food Pantry started as a ministry to 50 households per week and has expanded to a comprehensive program providing food, clothes, and social services on a weekly basis to more than 500 at-risk families who live in Chicago’s Park Manor neighborhood.  

The volunteer day started with an orientation.  The leaders of the food pantry gave the students an overview of the pantry, including its history and role in the community.  Students were surprised to learn that the pantry actually exists to serve working class families who have been hit particularly hard by the economic downturn, losing jobs and enduring pay and hour cuts. With Thanksgiving less than a week away, DePaul students labored diligently in packing the food at the pantry and loading it into bins to be distributed to needy families. Students were given the goal of packing five hundred bags. Not only did they meet that goal, but they exceeded it and enjoyed themselves in the process! The food pantry staff was generous enough to provide all the volunteers with a delicious lunch afterwards, and students left the pantry feeling great about contributing to a worthy cause during the holiday season.

(Students volunteering at the food pantry)